


The Most Contented Man in the Room

by BandaBecca



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, POV Cullen Rutherford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 17:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16123622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BandaBecca/pseuds/BandaBecca
Summary: Skyhold is holding a ball for Orlesian Nobles, and as Cullen watches the Inquisitor entrance their guests, he soon discovers how much she depends on him as more than her commander...





	The Most Contented Man in the Room

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy what I finally put to 'paper'. Thank you for reading! (Check out my BandaBecca tumblr for more if you like)

The suit I was dressed in was uncomfortably tight as I ascended the Inquisitor’s stairs, but if Josephine’s assistant had put me in it, I had to assume it was for an Orlesian fashionable purpose I didn’t understand. I fit a finger into the neckline and pulled, trying to loosen it even a little as I took the last steps to her quarters.

 

The room was silent as I turned around the bannister to where Olivier, Josephine, and Leliana were standing, Olivier clearly outshining the other two. Except ‘shining’ wasn’t the right word for her—she looked like smoke incarnate, her dress falling softly around her even as it demanded my attention. It was deep grey with silk as smooth as shadow that absorbed the light around it. She hadn’t let them turn her into a peacock on display: she was a knife in the dark wearing a smile, a vision of the void.

 

Josephine softly cleared her throat as Leliana let out a small huff of a laugh.

 

I rubbed my neck. ‘Forgive me. You—you _all_ look…wonderful.’ I dared a glance at Olivier, a small smile on her face, eyes exploring my form.

 

‘Let’s not keep them waiting any longer,’ Josephine said, leading the other women past me. Leliana didn’t speak as she crossed in front of me, but her eyes suggested she was thinking plenty.

 

Olivier and I fell into step as we navigated the levels of stairs to the main hall. Her presence filled my vision, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. I started to sweat.

 

She broke the silence between us. ‘Your outfit, it suits you,’ she said, eyes forward.

 

‘Thank you. But I don’t think _I_ suit _it_ much.’

 

She smiled, and her eyes drifted and locked on mine, the ice blue of her eyes sending my stomach dropping into my shoes. ‘It doesn’t have to reflect your personality to look—’

 

‘Ready Commander?’ Josephine looked back at us from the entrance to the main hall.

 

‘I—yes.’ With a last look over my shoulder to Oliver, I stepped through the door as a servant closed it behind me, Olivier closing her eyes and slipping a dainty black mask over her face. As we were introduced, I was unable to focus, too busy mentally preparing for her reveal, to be ready to spot any threat when she emerged.

 

The moment came.

 

Was it good or bad that they didn’t gasp as I’d come to expect of these overdramatic stiff-shirts? But if there had been any doubt in my mind about her ability to lead us through tonight, it vanished as she rose up the steps to stand in front of her throne. The room was completely silent as she looked out at us all before speaking.

 

She raised an arm in greeting, but her smile—if that could be called one—was slight. ‘Welcome to Skyhold,’ she called out, and an applause broke out. She continued speaking before they finished, forcing them to stop abruptly to catch her words. ‘I hope to become acquainted with all of you as the night passes to find a way to thank you for gracing my hall with your presence.’ She paused and looked out at us like a parent fully expecting their child to misbehave. ‘Additionally, I seek to assure you, in any way that I can, that the Inquisition is doing its upmost to heal the Breach and find justice for Divine Justinia. Do enjoy yourselves,’ she said, her voice light but still managing to sound commanding. To finish her introduction, she reached a hand up and pulled on the ribbon holding her mask in place. The Orlesians lived up to their reputation then, their gasps and whispers of scandal filling the air as the mask swayed and sank to the floor like paper. With her unwillingness to wear a mask, her sentiment of refusal to entertain the Game was not lost on a single reveller. Olivier was a wonder in one thousand ways, but as the gossip flared around us all, I had never been prouder of her.

 

She held her head high and moved forward to us advisors, and we all naturally closed in around her.

 

‘This will be the talk of Thedas for months.’ Josephine said, unable to hide her smile.

 

‘And the night has barely begun,’ Leliana added, endlessly scanning the crowd. She wore a strange expression: she was clearly pleased with Olivier’s introduction, but something was distracting her as her eyes drifted to me.

 

Under the gaze of our spymaster, my thoughts were redirected to every person in this room who would be ready to hurt Olivier, either by physically harming her or through political manipulation designed to ruin her chances against Corypheus. ‘What next, Inquisitor?’

 

Her eyes went hard, focusing on someone over my shoulder. ‘Now I go to work.’ She had already transformed into the formidable leader we needed in those moments before she stepped into the hall. She moved past me toward a group of three masked nobles, their eyes on her in rapt attention. She’d done her research well, calling their names as she approached them.

 

And Leliana was right: the night had only begun. As the minutes passed and turned to hours, I found myself unable to fathom what I was seeing. She was a natural, her smile flashing at each face, eyes intent on each guest as they spoke to her, a touch of an arm here, a whispered word there. Each person made to feel as if the party couldn’t continue without them. When the music began, she did not hesitate to dance, and included everyone, seemingly flattered to be dancing even with those who clearly had no skill in the craft.

 

I watched her as she endlessly moved from arm to arm, her hair fanning around her as her dress ebbed and flowed around her, her smile a flash of teeth. If I didn’t know what she looked like when she was happy, I would think this was it.

 

Even so, it was hard to concentrate on much else when she was touching everyone in the room except me.

 

Leliana and Josephine came to either side of me then. ‘Smile, Commander. You’re being observed,’ Josephine said.

 

‘Forgive me, I’m…watching the room.’

 

‘Well do so without looking so much like a bear woken from hibernation.’

 

Leliana was staring at me, I could see it, but I didn’t indulge her. ‘I don’t know what more I could do. The Inquisitor seems to have the nobles well in hand.’ She bowed to her partner then, turning to Maryden along with the others, clapping and giving her a rare and genuine smile. Maryden didn’t miss the attention and blushed slightly as she bowed before beginning a new song. There was a sudden shuffle around the Inquisitor as several people reached for her at once, but only one succeeded, and Olivier spun away from her gracefully as if the movement had been planned and wasn’t an intended slight to avoid dancing.

 

I lost her in the crowd the next moment. ‘I had no idea she would be so good at playing the Game,’ I said under my breath.

 

Leliana and Josephine glanced at each other. ‘That’s not the Game,’ Josephine said, eyes sparkling with pride.

 

Leliana smiled slightly, eyes still wandering over machinations in the room that I couldn’t see. ‘She just…plays well with others.’

 

I swallowed. She was doing this well because she was charismatic? A woman with that much natural inclination to be adored by everyone she met had no business turning her attention on someone like m—

 

It wasn’t a breeze, but a slight disturbance behind me. I jumped, turning to the Inquisitor now behind me, a full glass of champagne in her hand. Her body was angled to take advantage of the curtain to my left and my own body, blocking her from view.

 

She smiled when I jumped, and I tried to hide it with a cough. ‘You look to be the most contented man in the room, Commander.’ Her expression appeared more weighed down than before, but her eyes had lost none of their sharpness. She took a sip of the bubbling liquid. ‘Do you suppose they’ll leave any time soon?’ she asked under her breath, leaning on my arm to raise one leg and fiddle with the strange partial foot coverings that she always wore.

 

‘I certainly hope not,’ Josephine said. ‘Another few minutes and the whole room will be giving you full access to their coffers.’

 

‘And their private quarters,’ Leliana added.

 

Olivier pushed herself further into the shadow of the curtain and crossed her arms. ‘I’ve had enough offers to last me a while.’

 

My throat burned, and I struggled to clear it.

 

Josie raised her arm momentarily as if suddenly remembering she didn’t have her usual clipboard attached to it. ‘There are a few more people I want you to speak to…Lord Cornelius could be further convinced to give us access to his land for passing goods, best speak to him before he has too much to drink. Lady Edelheit is withholding information about possible smuggling on her land, but don’t speak to _her_ until she’s had a few more glasses.’

 

Olivier scowled at looked at me with an expression that said, ‘Come _on_ ’. I smiled and marvelled that she’d lasted this long doing so well something I would have guessed was a thing she hated.

 

She leaned toward Leliana, whispering something I couldn’t catch, but whatever she said, finally broke Leliana’s gaze away from the workings of the party. ‘Josie, I think she needs a break. Let her step away for a moment so she can come back fresh.’

 

‘Lord Cornelius has just finished his second glass, he cannot finish his third before she has time to—’

 

‘I’ll speak to him. The Inquisitor cannot be expected to carry us singlehandedly through every battle. Especially when I can easily step in to relieve her.’

 

Josephine looked ready to fight the topic before her eyes softened on Olivier. ‘Of course. I’ll speak to Lady Edelheit. Take a few moments to yourself, Inquisitor, you’ve earned it.’

 

Olivier’s face fell into a relieved smile, and I realised that if Josephine had asked her to continue, she would have gone back out to the wolves with no hesitation. In a rogueish disappearing act, she turned into the curtain and was gone, a faint smell of autumn the only hint that she’d been here at all. A flare of disappointment worked its way up my neck before her face was back in place, eyes glimmering in the shadow as her fingers curled around my wrist.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ she asked.

 

I nodded, speechless. I caught Leliana’s wink before Olivier pulled me into Solas’s rotunda and closed the door behind us.

 

She took a long, slow sigh, her feet padding across the floor, unrushed for the first time that night. With each step, a bit of her bare toes peeked out of the silk.

 

‘Don’t elves ever get cold?’ My voice echoed in the stillness.

 

She shook her head. ‘Never. Same as Fereldens.’

 

I smiled and followed her through the next door, the path that led to my office. She stopped half way across, looking down at the glowing torches, masked and unmasked faces below as groups mingled about, their laughter floating up in bits and pieces.

 

She smiled as she watched it all, arms crossed over her chest against the cold. Her ears twitched much like a cats, and I wondered how much she could pick out from all the way up here.

 

I stood next to her, the heat radiating off her skin strongly enough that I could feel it through my suit, her warm, spiced scent making it difficult not to close my eyes and take a deep breath in to let myself become intoxicated at the sweet smell. Neither of us spoke, and I felt a sudden and overwhelming disbelief to be up here, alone with her, when she could have picked anyone in that hall to stand with now.

 

Her shoulders were high and tight, a posture I’d seen her wear too often in the War Room. ‘What is it?’

 

Her brow creased, her eyes not leaving the figures below. ‘Maybe I should be insulted that everyone, including you, is so surprised that I can get what we need from these nobles.’

 

I almost choked, shame making my throat feel hot. ‘I—I’m sorry. You’re right, you’ve more than proven yourself capable at so many other things for me not to have expected—’

 

She turned to me, a sad smile on her face. ‘I wasn’t trying to force you to apologise. I really _shouldn’t_ be any good at it, should I?’ She turned her face up to the stars, throat contracting as she swallowed.

 

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if there was anything I _could_ say. There was something about her, the way she was standing, perhaps, telling me there was more she wasn’t saying. She was obviously sitting on something, but what had I done to earn her confidence?

 

‘Do you see me differently now?’ Her voice was soft, but it broke through my thoughts like a dagger, her eyes searching mine, back and forth.

 

I was confused. ‘Of course not. I…’ her face was concentrated so thoroughly on me. There was clearly a right answer here, but I was clueless which it could be. ‘…am very impressed, but I…I don’t…’

 

She turned back to the grounds, her shoulders sagging, but in relief or disappointment I couldn’t tell.

 

I wanted to get this right for her, but I didn’t trust myself to decipher her thoughts without her help. ‘Did you want me to?’

 

She looked down at her feet, tracing her toe around the lines of the stones, over, down around. Over, down, around. ‘I’m glad you weren’t out there dancing. I’m glad you couldn’t hear what I said.’ She pulled her foot under the safety of the silk again, and my eyes darted back to her face. ‘I couldn’t help watching you all night, worried that one time I’d look and you’d be close to me, watching me…watching me say…’ she huffed, looking over my shoulder as if worried someone was going to interrupt her.

 

I put a hand on her arm. I knew the feeling of struggling to get the words right when you knew that _this_ was when they mattered. ‘You don’t have to be worried. I know the nobles ask things of you, and you’re obliged to do them as the Inquisitor.’

 

She pulled my hand off her arm but kept it clenched in her own. ‘That’s just it. I’m not obliged, not always. I’m offering myself to these people. I see in their faces how much my attention gives them pleasure, and I become…this…woman, a woman who exploits that, but I give up every single part of who I really am to make myself into someone every person in that room will fall in love with.’ She gestured wildly, furiously, but at them or herself, I didn’t know. Her eyes were wide and desperate to pour whatever she was feeling directly into me, to make me understand. ‘It feels awful—dirty. Actually dirty. I can feel every spot on my skin where they’ve touched me, trying to take a piece of me, the places where they’ve run their fingers through my hair. I’m ready to get one of my daggers and cut it off at the scalp!’

 

She turned away from me then, rubbing her arms. She stepped away, her shoulders hunched.

 

I watched her, baffled. Not that she was feeling this way, but that she had been so good at hiding it—would have continued to hide it throughout the night. Despite her fear and her feelings of shame, I _had_ been watching her. I should have seen that they were using her this way.

 

I closed half the distance between us, wanting to reach out to her, but not wanting to add to the number of fingers smudging who she really was. ‘I’m sorry.’

 

She laughed, a breathy thing. ‘Not as much as I am for shoving this all on you. You’ve enough burdens tonight. I see the way they all look at you. I’m not the only one who’s fallen prey to bloodthirsty Orlesians.’ Her face was still turned away, but I could tell by the tilt of her head that the thought made her eyes roll.

 

‘Olivier.’ She didn’t react. ‘Please, look at me.’

 

At last, she did, though noncommittedly. She turned her head but not her body, her eyes glistening under the torchlight.

 

I took a step closer. ‘There’s nothing you could say that I don’t want to hear.’ Another step. ‘Not that I’m in any position to…’ I stumbled over my words. No, this wasn’t the time to second guess. ‘You deserve better than tonight. Than people trying to make you feel like you need to mould yourself into something different. The Inquisition has gotten as far as it has because _you_ are the one guiding it, and no one could have us on a path more led by a genuine sense of right and wrong as you.’ Not that my word counted for much outside of my qualifications with our soldiers that is, but even if my thoughts didn’t have much sway, they weren’t any less true.

 

With her arms still crossed over her chest, she took a slow step to close the space between us, tucking her forehead into my neck. I swallowed, still unsure if I should touch her after what she had said. She whispered my name then, her breath just enough to graze my jaw. I closed my arms around her tentatively, ready to pull back if she resisted. She let out a deep sigh, unfolding her arms to circle around me, holding me tightly against her chest. I hoped she couldn’t hear how my heart sped up at the feel of her body so aligned with mine, no armour to mute the feel of her.

 

She leaned away but didn’t release me. I held her, content just to be close to her. I didn’t want to let go yet. Not ever, really.

 

‘Do I have to let you go now?’ she asked, her voice so light, the wind almost dashed it away. ‘Let you go back to that damn party and watch those nobles undress you with their eyes for another few hours?’

 

‘ _Few hours_? Maker forbid.’

 

She laughed then. Really laughed, and the sound almost stole my breath from my chest. I rose my hand to her cheek, brushing aside a lock of hair that had blown into her face. Her face cleared of laughter, and the knot between her eyebrows threatened to return. ‘I don’t know if I can pretend I don’t care anymore.’

 

‘But now you have me to help you. Josephine and Leliana will understand, we’ll keep it as uneventful as possible the rest of the night. You’ve already met with most of them and—’

 

‘I don’t mean about that.’ She looked away from me.

 

I wasn’t surprised to be missing her meaning, but I was still disappointed in myself for it. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t…’

 

‘About you, Cullen.’ Her gaze was back on me again, but a strange smile ghosted along her features as if she was prepared to claim it all a big joke. ‘I don’t want them to look at you like that. I don’t want anyone to…’ She pulled away slightly, rubbing her forehead. ‘Not that I blame them, that suit is really…you’re really…really something tonight.’

 

Could she really…Could _I_ really…?

 

‘Come back with me. Let me escort you the rest of the night.’

 

Her grip tightened on me, and I could see it in her eyes, I knew I could: she wanted this, wanted _me_. Her eyes shone, but she stumbled over her words anyway. ‘I still have to…you know, entertain people. I can’t suddenly become...antisocial to them.’

 

‘Then…let me dance with you out there. Please. As many times as you like. I haven’t danced since I was a boy, but I don’t suppose I’m the one they’ll be watching anyw—’

 

And the warm, spiced smell was all around me, her lips on mine, her arms around my neck. Her eyes closed, but I found myself unable to think around the shouting in my brain. I had thought about kissing her countless times—enough that Leliana and Josephine both noticed a long time ago—but I didn’t feel like I deserved this now, deserved her.

 

But it didn’t matter because she didn’t stop kissing me. After the initial surprise, it all settled over me: her smooth skin, the caress of the silk, her fruity taste, the sudden realisation that I hadn’t been hopelessly optimistic to think that perhaps I’d caught her watching me in the War Room too, that maybe those conversations _had_ been flirting.

 

That all this time, she had wanted me as much as I’d so desperately wanted her.

 

We pulled away, foreheads touching, breath mingling. She kept her eyes closed for a moment before staring at my collar. ‘Wow,’ she said, raising her eyes to mine.

 

It felt like my legs were made of stew, but I kept that to myself. ‘Me too,’ I breathed, still in disbelief.

 

‘We should, um…’ her gaze drifted to the door behind me. ‘Right?’

 

I swallowed, an answer on the tip of my tongue that we didn’t have to, not really, but I knew how much trouble we’d both be in if I kept her, and not just with Leliana and Josephine.

 

I took her hand as we walked through to door and across the rotunda. We were both quiet for the short journey—I didn’t know what she was thinking of, but I was too busy trying not to sweat while planning when I could kiss her again. When we reached the door to the main hall, she held my hand tightly, straightening her back once again into her Inquisitor’s posture.

 

‘Ready?’ I asked.

 

She turned her face to me, her eyes still slightly clouded from the kissing, the wrinkles around them part of her overly-giddy smile. ‘No,’ she said, laughing.

 

It was too much. I lowered myself down to her, pressing my lips against hers once more, just once, before we had to face them all again. I pulled back quicker than I wanted to, the knowledge that anyone could come through that door a bit too risky for my constitution.

 

How could it be that the smile on her face now was because of me? How had I been given this moment despite everything?

 

The idea of spending time in a hall full of Orlesian nobles didn’t feel as difficult to endure with Olivier’s fingers gently pressing the inside of my arm.  


End file.
